Joey Bats Goes Ballistic

For a player sometimes referred to as “Joey Bats,” Jose Bautista hadn’t exactly been an offensive stalwart prior to 2010. A 20th-round draft-and-follow-pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates back in 2000, Bautista wasn’t placed on the Bucs’ 40-man roster after the 2003 season. His omission began a Rule V odyssey taking him through Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Queens, and finally back to the ‘Burgh (as part of a deadline deal for Kris Benson) within the span of six months. The Pirates shipped Bautista to Toronto in August of ’08 for catcher Robinzon Diaz, currently struggling to slug .330 for Detroit’s Triple-A affiliate. From 2004-2009, Bautista’s bat was six percent below average (94 wRC+), and his .161 Isolated Power was right around the big league norm. He racked up a combined 1.8 wins above replacement. To most fans, Joey Bats was just another Joe Shmoe trying to stick on a major league roster.

And then, 2010 happened. In 452 plate appearances, Bautista is batting .263/.376/.600. His .162 wRC+ dwarfs his modest CHONE and ZiPS pre-season projections (both called for a 94 wRC+). With 33 home runs, Bautista holds a five dinger lead over his closest competitor, Adam Dunn. Jose’s .337 ISO tops all big leaguers (Miguel Cabrera is a distant second, at .300) and more than doubles his pre-season forecasts (.162 from ZiPS, .163 from CHONE). Despite his continued defensive issues, Bautista ranks 16th among position players with four WAR. He hasn’t simply surpassed expectations. Rather, he has taken those expectations, crumpled them into a little ball, and then hammered them all the way to Quebec.

How has Bautista done it? Well, he’s hitting the ball on the ground much less often. Bautista’s ground ball rate, 41.9 percent from 2004-2009, is just 32.2% in 2010. His fly ball percentage, 42.8 percent from ’04 to ’09, is 52.2% (third-highest in the majors). His home run per fly ball rate has spiked from 10.4% from ’04 to ’09 to 21% this season (fifth in the majors).

Bautista is also pulling the ball a lot more this season:

The chart above is normally positive for most players, as the average batter shows far more power to the pull side than to the center and opposite fields. But it’s even better for Bautista. He’s an abysmal hitter when he puts the ball in play to right field:

The past couple of years, he has been Tony Pena Jr. circa 2008 when he goes the opposite way. He has never hit an opposite-field homer in his career. To center, Bautista performs quite well compared to the average hitter:

But that’s nothing compared to his exploits when pulling the ball. Bautista has long been above average when hitting to left, but check out those 2010 numbers.

Bam! Pow! Zap! A .650 wOBA. A .699 ISO, with nearly 47% of his fly balls finding the cheap seats. Twenty-nine of Bautista’s 33 home runs have been hit to the pull side. Take a look at his home run chart from Hit Tracker Online:

There’s an inverse relationship between power and fastballs seen — the more pop a player displays, the less often he gets a heater. We’ve seen that with Bautista this season, as he has gotten a fastball just 49.4%, which is the fifth-lowest FB% among MLB hitters and is well below his career 57.7% rate of fastballs seen. It hasn’t much mattered to this point, as Bautista is killing everything but changeups.

Bautista’s gargantuan season has been a happy development for the Blue Jays, and it would be a mistake to simply waive off his power display as a total fluke. That being said, there’s no way he’s going to keep an ISO approaching Babe Ruth’s career mark. ZiPS projects a .359 wOBA for Jose, with a .245 ISO that essentially splits the difference between his career figure entering 2010 and his current, jaw-dropping total.

It will be interesting to see what course of action the Jays take with Bautista this off-season. He’s arbitration-eligible in 2011 and then hits free agency. Bautista’s making $2.4 million this year, and early estimates of his arbitration award this winter are in the $6-$8 million range. Even with significant regression, Bautista is worth that sum. But would Toronto be best off shopping him this off-season, while his value is at its apex? I have a hard time believing GM Alex Anthopoulos won’t heavily consider that option. What do you think?